I’d never really heard At the Drive-In, but I remember a lot of people were excited about them; they got really big and broke up as soon as they got huge. I thought that took a lot of balls. People were always going to be interested in what those two guys did next. We were setting up at this club in Georgia and someone had demos of the first Volta album playing over the PA – it hadn’t even come out yet. I said ‘Goddamn, who is this band?’ Oh, it’s the guys from At the Drive-In. Volta were the only modern day prog band breaking through to the mainstream. I can’t remember the names of every drummer, but they always had someone ridiculous sitting back there. Like Jesus, where do you find these guys? I picture Omar in a van with tinted windows parked outside of a musician’s institute. It inspired us to go out on a limb a little bit more. We’ve always had the prog thing in there, but Mars Volta definitely set us off. This is just a monster. It’s non-stop and it’s a beautiful piece of music – all of these intricate compositions, while also maintaining true songs that blossom out of the madness. That’s hard to do. We were driving around in our van listening to this record nonstop for some time. We finally met those guys when they came and played in Atlanta. Their drummer at the time said ‘oh yeah, we have to listen to Hearts Alive before we go onstage each night.’ We found out that we had a mutual admiration for each other and became really fast friends with a similar sense of humour and a mutual love for Alejandro Jodorowsky movies. I always look forward to seeing those guys, in whichever capacity it may be in.

Is it just me or does it seem that while music journalists shit on volta, real musicians almost always love them? Its a band for people who play music

true story

I concur, I think it's easier to appreciate if you're a musician. If you're not it could be overwhelming and maybe even too much. When I wasn't a musician I never had the attention span to listen to them, but now after 15 years of being a musician they're one of my top favorite bands.

Oddly enough it was actually the other way around for me; I think I was more obsessed with Volta before I became a musician. I guess because the music was more mysterious to me back then. I don't like the music any less though, it's just easier to obsess over something when you have no idea how it was made.